On Monday’s Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow, Dr. Sebastian Gorka said, “All of the attacks over the weekend, all three of them, and the detonation of a backpack that we had just now, is part and parcel of the new jihadi tactic that we’ve seen in the last two years.”

Gorka added:

ISIS has encouraged, since it declared the Caliphate, the use of classic guerilla warfare. It’s not like al-Qaeda. It’s not about giant spectacle. It’s not 9/11-style attacks. It’s cheap, low-investment, high-yield return.

We have seen, literally, scores of knife attacks in Israel since September. They’ve taken a leaf out of the Palestinian playbook. We’ve seen the attack, the murder of the French priest. We’ve seen the lorry attack, the truck attack in Nice, France.

These are all very, very simple to do, and the ISIS mantra, from their magazine Dabiq, has been clear: look for high concentrations of unarmed civilians. What did we see? We see a food court in St. Cloud. We see in New Jersey a Marine Corps five-mile run. If those pipe bombs had detonated when the runners were going past – by the grace of God, the runners had been delayed at the registration desk – it would have made the weekend’s events much worse.

Another bit of “connective tissue” between these terror attacks highlighted by Gorka was the use of pressure-cooker bombs, similar to those favored by the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston. “A lot of people miss the fact that when they were being chased by the police, after the marathon attack, they also used pipe bombs,” he added. “They threw pipe bombs at the police officers that were trying to neutralize them.”

“Anybody who says they’re surprised by what happened over the weekend has been asleep for the last two years,” he declared.

Marlow trenchantly noted that Hillary Clinton seemed to have literally been asleep during the latest round of terror attacks: “sleepwalking through it, she can barely keep her eyes open as she first declares it a bombing and then condemns Donald Trump for using the word ‘bomb.’”

Gorka addressed Marlow’s point about the danger of Americans growing accustomed to terrorist atrocities:

Let’s just look at the numbers. Three attacks, okay? Eleven devices. There were five that were found in a backpack just last night. There were four; only one detonated in New Jersey. Then we have the two pressure-cooker bombs, and on top of that, we have the knife attack. This is the kind of density of attack and devices that we recall from the Cold War. This is like the IRA period.

The war is real, and the war has arrived at America’s shores, and I think it makes the November decision all the more a decision about which candidate you think is going to be the more effective commander-in-chief, who takes this war seriously, and who doesn’t have just incredible gaffes, like Johnson, or just complete non-sequitur oxymoronic statements, such as Secretary Clinton?

Gorka said there are two big reasons the Left is more obsessed with policing language than stopping terrorism:

Number one, if they admit this is a jihadi threat coming from Arab or Muslim communities or Egypt, then the whole multicultural narrative is proven to be bankrupt. Number one is this huge failure, for the last 30 years, of politically correct multicultural narratives.

And secondly, the other reason the administration, and people like Secretary Clinton,have to deny the reality of the escalating threat is the natural conclusion everybody will draw. So what does that mean about the last seven-and-a-half years of your counterterrorism policy? It means it is an utter, abject failure.

Explosions in New Jersey and New York on Saturday quickly drew the involvement of FBI terrorism investigators, as the latter blast injured dozens and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio insisted there was no terror threat against the Big Apple.

The first blast occurred at the start of the Seaside Semper Fi Marine Corps charity 5K in Seaside Park, N.J., as a pipe bomb detonated in a garbage can. No one was injured at this incident, but the race was canceled.

“Race officials working closely with local authorities made the decision to cancel the race and evacuate the area,” race organizers said in a statement, thanking “all those who showed up today in support of our military for their patience and understanding.”

The race was scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. at Ocean Avenue and D Street, but was delayed due to snafus with runners’ registration, the Asbury Park Press reported. Thus, the start line area was largely empty when the device detonated at 9:35 a.m. About 3,000 people were gathered around the registration area.

Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, said three pipe bombs were inside the trash can but only one detonated. “If it was just a matter of minutes, in terms of difference, there would have been a good number of people running past that explosive device,” he said.

Citing federal law enforcement officials, CNN reported that the bombs were “rudimentary” and set on a timer.

At about 8:30 p.m., an outdoor explosion was witnessed by officers on patrol in front of 131 West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, NYPD Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said in a statement.

“As of this time, there is no evidence to indicate that this explosion is a result of any natural gas cause. Again, the exact nature and cause of this explosion has not yet been determined,” O’Neill said Saturday night. “As of the most recent information, there have been 27 injuries reported. One of these injuries may be considered serious. The Fire Department is currently assessing the extent of any possible structural damage resulting from this explosion.”

Most of those injured were hospitalized, the NYFD said. The number of wounded was later updated to 29.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted after the explosion: “Investigation is ongoing. Though we believe this was an intentional act, there is no credible terror threat against NYC at this moment.”

De Blasio told reporters there was “no specific evidence” of links between the NYC attack and New Jersey bomb.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said state officials are “coordinating our response with federal and New York City authorities, and full state resources have been made available for this investigation.”

“We are closely monitoring the situation and urge New Yorkers to, as always, remain calm and vigilant,” Cuomo said. “Those traveling in or through the area should be advised of closed sidewalks and roadway, and check MTA.info for subway and bus service alerts. As a reminder, the PATH station at 23rd Street is closed for previously-announced weekend closures.”

“We are in close contact with health providers to monitor the extent of the injuries and will provide information as it becomes available.”

A White House official said President Obama “has been apprised of the explosion in New York City, the cause of which remains under investigation.”

“The president will be updated as additional information becomes available,” the official added.

Then news broke that another device had been found just four blocks from the crime scene: a pressure cooker with wiring and an apparent cell phone detonator, the Associated Press reported, in a plastic bag on West 27th Street between 6th and 7th avenues.

The NYPD said the area was not being evacuated, but the department tweeted a message asking residents on the block to “stay away from windows facing 27th Street until we clear the area of a suspicious package.” The police called it “a precautionary measure only.”

The May issue of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire magazine, which gave the Boston Bombers their pressure cooker recipe, featured step-by-step new recipes on how to build a parcel bomb, a magnetic car bomb, and a door-trap bomb. It also contained what could be an Election Day reference: “Hidden bomb, car bomb, pressure cooker, assassinations,” read a checklist, followed by “make your vote count.”

An ISIS video released in June ripped off mock-up footage from an Al-Jazeera segment on terrorism to portray a man getting ready for a suicide bombing in Times Square. The video then showed news footage of the ABC News building banner in New York scrolling a headline about the November Paris attacks.

Also that month, when the terror group was taking a victory lap over Omar Mateen’s attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the ISIS-linked Al-Battar Media Foundation suggested jihadists target movie theaters, hospitals, airports, trains, amusement parks and restaurants. Lone jihadists shouldn’t “shy away from targeting the so-called civilians… the so-called innocent people,” the statement said.

A new English-language ISIS magazine this month said “the blood of the disbelievers is halal, and killing them is a form of worship to Allah,” thus jihadists should expand their targets to include “the businessman riding to work in a taxicab, the young adults (post-pubescent ‘children’) engaged in sports activities in the park, and the old man waiting in line to buy a sandwich.”

UPDATE 3:30 a.m.: CNN reported that a third suspicious device was being investigated at West 28th Street and 5th Avenue. Police investigated and determined it to be a false alarm.

NYPD shut down traffic eastbound and westbound from West 14th Street to West 32nd Street and from 5th Avenue to 8th Avenue. “The closures are in effect until further notice,” the department said.

With ISIS committing acts of terror on 4 continents, and President Obama importing refugees from their home territory, now is a bad time to offer interest-free Sharia Law mortgages in America, but that’s exactly what one company is doing.

The beach town of Asbury Park, New Jersey has undergone a slow-grinding redevelopment for the better part of 30 years. Bereft of money in 2007, the city sold millions of dollars worth of storied boardwalk buildings including Convention Hall to a private company — Madison Marquette. Madison Marquette also owns concert venues near the boardwalk like the famed Stone Pony. They are positioned in expensive retail properties across America in California, Ohio, Washington, D.C., Florida and more.

What few know is that Madison Marquette is owned by an Islamic company rooted in the Middle East; a company whose other subsidiary specializes in “Sharia Law Compliance” and lures Sharia-following Muslims to 23 states with interest-free home mortgages.

Guidance Financial maintains a “Shariah Supervisory Board.” This board counsels in financial matters to ensure compliance with the controversial Muslim value system known as “Sharia.”

For the uninitiated, Sharia is a set of Islamic laws dating back to the 7th century, still used in whole or in part in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. Sharia contains the notoriously brutal social and penal rules that Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and other terrorists wish to impose on the West, including America.

Sharia also has strict business rules rooted in religious texts like the Koran and Hadith. For instance, it is prohibited to charge or pay interest, which they call riba. Sharia compliance is so complex that barely 100 Islamic scholars are recognized to opine on it, and they have set up a profitable cottage industry as “Sharia compliance advisors,” including in America. Guidance Financial is a world leader in this area.

Guidance Financial’s “Sharia Supervisory Board” is chaired by Sheik Muhammad Taqi Usmani, who sits on dozens of Shariah boards around the world. Usmani is part of the Deobandi movement, whose madrassas inspired the creation of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and for whom Usmani tried to set up a Sharia banking system. In 2013 he issued a fatwa against the Pakistani government for assisting the U.S. in the fight against Afghan terrorists.

His support for the Taliban against the U.S. did not get him in as much hot water as when his book, “Islam and Modernity” was translated into English in 2006. It’s been reported Usmani was on the Sharia Board of the Dow Jones Islamic Fund Index, who cut ties with Usmani and scrubbed his name from their media materials after his radical writings were published.

In his book, a questioner asked Usmani if it was necessary to commit Jihad against a Western country, if Muslims were already free to practice and preach Islam there.

Usmani answered that the right to practice and preach Islam wasn’t good enough. Muslims must break the “grandeur and domination” of non-believers in the West, as dominance gives a psychological advantage. He then cited the Koran, thusly:

Here, killing is to continue until the unbelievers pay Jizyah [a Muslim tax on non-Muslims], after they are humbled or overpowered. If the purpose of killing was only to acquire permission and freedom of preaching Islam, it would have said “until they allow for preaching Islam.” But the obligation of Jizyah and along with it the mention of their subordination is a clear proof that the purpose is to smash their grandeur, so that the veils of the domination should be raised and people get a chance to think over the blessings of Islam.

Usmani made two other points consequential to the West. First, he said if Muslims do not posses the capability of “Jihad with Power” then agreements can be maintained “until power is attained.” Second, he opined that imperialism by conquering other lands was a legitimate goal of Islam.

Adding it all up, Sheik Usmani said Muslims should come here, obtain power then launch jihad by killing us. After they destroy our culture (grandeur), they will spare those who agree to pay a tax and submit to Islam. The survivors will have the status of a dhimmi.

Of course for Usmani’s idea of attack to work in America, he would first need to settle Muslims here who are devoutly committed to Sharia. Well…

Be introduced to another Guidance Financial project – Guidance Residential – which gives interest free Sharia-compliant mortgages to buy homes in 23 states, including New Jersey. They are luring people who wish to follow Sharia and already closed 8,000 loans around the country. Who is chair of the Shariah Board for Guidance Residential? The same Sheik Usmani who advised Muslims to lay in wait and kill us. Guidance Residential held training seminars for Imams in Berkeley California to school them in Sharia, using videos of Sheik Usmani.

President Obama sent Governor Chris Christie a letter telling him some of the 10,000 Syrian refugees he’s bringing to America will be in New Jersey. Syrians culturally grew up with Islamic Law written into their Constitution (1973 and 2012 versions), and codified a form of Sharia into a statute on marriage, divorce, inheritance, and custody.

Not all Muslims follow Sharia, but all Islamic terrorists claim to. Filtering the good from the bad is hard, so Sharia mortgage applications should be a red flag.

We are all looking for possibilities of terrorists in America and 9/11 was a failure to connect the dots.

Our mantra now is, “If you see something, say something.” So here is what needs to be said:

Asbury Park is a very diverse city where no one stands out. If terrorists are looking for a place to lay in wait to commit jihad, as Sheik Usmani suggested they do, Asbury Park is now magnetized to attract them. An Islamic controlled company runs the beachfront and will help with a Sharia mortgage.

Cozy.

A perfect storm of jihadi possibility, even if the parent company and the local Madison Marquette office don’t intend it.

Are terrorists already here? An ISIS terrorist supporter was arrested in Asbury Park in 2015.

What reliance shall we place on “screening” for terrorists? The San Bernardino killer was screened but laid in wait. Jihadists have the advantage when hiding in a group as big as 10,000, as it only took 19 men to conduct the 9/11 attack, 8 in Paris, 2 in Boston and 1 at Fort Hood.

Discovering those laying in wait is hard and Sharia adherence may present the only clue the FBI and CIA can follow. They should.

With ISIS now committing a Christian genocide, complete with beheadings and crucifixions, even of children, this is no time to countenance an immigration policy that enables terrorists to infiltrate our country by gaming our screening process just so politicians can feel good about themselves. Let’s not attract them with interest free mortgages, either.

Enjoying a day at Asbury Park’s boardwalk shouldn’t require a terrorist risk assessment.

The significance of Bridgegate, however extensive, pales in comparison to Christie’s deeply troubling relationships with terrorist-sympathizers and supporters in the New Jersey Muslim community. He has sheltered known Islamists from law enforcement, excused their hateful rhetoric, ignored threats to national security, criticized legitimate law enforcement activities, and dismissed constitutional rights — all to pander to a Muslim constituency.

The political flap over Chris Christie’s role in “Bridgegate” has thrown a spotlight once again on the rough-hewn, plain-speaking New Jersey governor. But the drama of the current brouhaha has drawn attention away from the governor’s more serious, ongoing missteps — namely, his cultivation of relationships with those associated with known terrorist groups. Remarkably, New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie appears more contrite about Bridgegate than he is about these associations that threaten national security.

Muslims & Political Influence in New Jersey

New Jersey has the second-largest Muslim population of any state, after Michigan. Paterson, the county seat of Passaic County, is home to a controversial Hamas-linked mosque, the Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC), and contains the largest population of Palestinian Muslims in the United States. The Muslim community in South Paterson is referred to as “Little Ramallah.”

This past year, Paterson’s mayor, Jeff Jones, was the first U.S. city official to host a “Palestinian-American Day,” with a Palestinian flag hoisted over City Hall on Israeli Independence Day. Astonishingly, the event organizer, Khader Abuassab, a convicted criminal who pled guilty to fraud and swindling, is on record telling local Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement. Further, Abuassab served on the Paterson Board of Education, ran for City Council, and now serves on Governor Christie’s Muslim Outreach Committee.

Christie & Mohammed Qatanani

But Christie’s record of political support for Muslims dates back to his days as U.S. attorney. It was then, in 2006, when he came to the aid of a radical Muslim imam, Mohammed Qatanani, who was on the verge of being deported from the United States for failure to disclose terrorist affiliations.

The little-known details are that Qatanani arrived in the United States in 1996 to take over the ICPC, one of the largest mosques in the state. Housed in a former synagogue, the ICPC was founded in 1989 by Imam Mohammed El-Mezain, a convicted Hamas operative and fundraiser who publicly boasted of raising close to $2 million for the organization. In 1996, Qatanani arrived to succeed El-Mezain.

Given the mosque’s affiliations, it’s not surprising that Qatanani also has a background littered with terrorist associations. He was arrested and convicted in Israel in 1993 as a self-admitted member of Hamas. As a Muslim Brotherhood operative, he had provided financial support for terrorist activities and continued to send large cash transfers to the West Bank once he arrived.

These activities raised suspicions by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which in 2006 began attempts to deport Qatanani for failure to disclose his 1993 arrest in Israel for involvement with a terrorist group. Despite the charges for his terrorist activities and very real security concerns about the Hamas-affiliated imam, a spokesman for Qatanani, Aref Assaf, called the deportation effort “vindictive,” implying that the investigation was ill-conceived and baseless.

Then, then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie came to the aid of the imam. In response to a 2008 DHS court filing, Christie defended the imam as a “man of great goodwill” and sent his assistant U.S. attorney, Charles McKenna, to court to serve as a character witness. As a result of Christie’s efforts, Qatanani was granted legal permanent residency.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity, honors New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie in a new report on “Islamophobia” that was released on September 19. The Clarion Project has played a leading role in exposing Christie’s associations with Islamists.

The new report, Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States, has a list of people and groups that CAIR praises for “their outstanding contributions to pushing back against Islamophobic trends in 2011 and 2012.”

The second name on the list is N.J. Governor Chris Christie, who is cruising to an easy re-election and a new CNN poll shows is leading the pack for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

CAIR’s write-up on Christie points out what he said in August 2011 when he attacked those warning about the attempts by Islamist elements to introduce sharia law into the U.S. legal system: “This Sharia law business is just crap. It’s just crazy and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies.”

Christie has long defended Imam Mohamed Qatanani, a Hamas-linked cleric that the Department of Homeland Security is trying to deport from the country. Qatanani’s attorney, Sohail Mohammed, was appointed by Christie to serve as a state Superior Court Judge.

A recent spate of killings in the United States of non-Muslims by Muslims has gone unnoticed by the major media. Here are four cases I know of:

Feb. 5: Yusuf Ibrahim, 27, Egyptian born and living in Jersey City, stands accused of shooting, then cutting off the heads and hands of two Copts, Hanny F. Tawadros and Amgad A. Konds, and burying them in Buena Vista Township, New Jersey. He is charged with two counts of murder and with desecrating human remains. He is also wanted for a Sep. 20, 2012, armed robbery in Jersey City in which a victim was shot in the foot.

Feb. 18: Ali Syed, 20, of Ladera Ranch, Calif., went on a shooting rampage in Southern California, killing Courtney Aoki, Mel Edwards, and Jeremy Lewis, then committed suicide. The Orange County Sheriff’s spokesman, Jim Amormino, said Syed, described as an unemployed part-time student at Saddleback College who lived with his parents and a loner who “spent a lot of time alone in his room playing video games,” left “no evidence, no note, nothing that would explain this very bizarre, violent behavior.”

Feb. 21: Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, 26, killed three people on the Las Vegas Strip and fled, is called armed and dangerous. He apparently got into an argument with, Ken Cherry, shot Cherry as Cherry was driving, which led to a collision that killed a taxi driver and his passenger. Harris has a long criminal record that includes kidnapping, sexual assault, and robbery.

Additionally, although the murder took place on July 31, 2012, only at his court hearing on Feb. 21 did public attention focus on Ali Salim, 44, a medical doctor born in Pakistan and living in New Albany, Ohio, who is accused of raping and killing nine months’ pregnant Deanna Ballman, 23, by injecting her with a lethal dose of heroin. He is charged with two counts of murder (Ballman and her unborn baby) as well as rape, felonious assault, corrupting another with drugs, kidnapping, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.

Comments: Because the media, law enforcement, and elected officials are so reluctant to give out information about the attackers’ religion, much less their motives, it’s basically impossible to tell from the outside if they represent a wave of jihadi attacks by Islamists or are just a bunch of criminals who happen to be Muslim, or a bit of both. The most the media will concede is in the Ibrahim case, that “Privately some wonder if it had something to do with the victims’ [Christian] religion.” When will journalists, police, and politicians end their efforts to hide key information that the public needs and deserves? (February 24, 2013)

Updates: This blog prompted readers to send other recent cases of Muslim-on-non-Muslim violence:

Sep. 8, 2011: As Justin Hall, 32, of Mount Vernon, Ohio, was about to board a Greyhound bus in Springfield, Mo., Mohamed H. Dawod, 25, of Glendale, Ariz., shot him in the back. Dawod tried to fire more shots but his pistol, a .22-cal. semi-automatic, jammed, at which point other passengers subdued him. The attack appeared to be unprovoked. Police are seeking a motive. They charged Dawod with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the shooting.

Feb. 27: A Pakistani immigrant, Kashif Bashir (not for sure a Muslim), 27, shot an Alexandria, Virginia police officer, Peter Laboy, in the head during a routine traffic stop for a minor infraction. Laboy barely survived.

Here we have another “silent” story about Islamic violence in our country with nary a word from the mainstream media about it. The country goes gaga over a beautiful model’s murder at the hands of an international legless sports hero, but the beheading of two Egyptian Coptic Christian men in New Jersey by a Muslim gets a pass. Why?

Simple. The gruesome beheading invokes the Muslim ritual, called for in the Koran. Koranic verse 8:12 reads: “I will instill terror into the hearts of unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingers off.”

Our media shuts its eyes, turns its head and stuffs its ears when anything negative about the primitive actions of Muslim occur.

Maj. Nidal Hasan, who brutally slaughtered 13 of his fellow troops at Fort Hood, Texas, and wounded 22 others, was said to have shouted, “Allahu Akhbar” during his shooting spree. He was just following Koranic orders to kill infidels. By the way, “Allahu Akhbar” is Arabic for “God is great.” The Pentagon’s “thorough” investigation into Hasan’s murderous assault never mentioned Islam, the Koran or the major’s religion in its final report. It was considered a workplace act of violence.

We are giving Islamic radicals a free pass to ritually murder those considered infidels, or non-believers in “the religion of peace,” and Muslims considered violators of Islam. May God help us!